


Between Scylla and Charybdis

by rebelliousrose



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Napoleon Whump, Pining, Research is my kink, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelliousrose/pseuds/rebelliousrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay, Cowboy?” Illya’s voice is flat, uninflected, but his eyes burn with a furious blue flame as he gently examines the cuts and burns on Solo’s chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Scylla and Charybdis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merle_p](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/gifts).



> Oh goodness. I rewrote this thing completely, and I think I got in all the prompts. And I do mean all, no matter how twisted they were to get them in there. merle_p, since it's yours, you get to title it! Happy SolstiChristmaKwanzaKuh!

“Okay, Cowboy?” Illya’s voice is flat, uninflected, but his eyes burn with a furious blue flame as he gently examines the cuts and burns on Solo’s chest.

“It’s all right, Peril,” Solo replies, “I can take what they dish out. We just have to wait for U.N.C.L.E. to find us.”

“How will they find us in the middle of an ocean? No trackers, no signal.” Illya uses part of his shirt to dab the blood away from the American’s cut lip. Solo is a mess, beaten, bruised, bloodied, battered, and a host of other unpleasant words beginning with B. He’s also a bit of a bastard, but he’s Illya’s bastard, and no one but Illya gets to do him damage.

For two of the world’s best spies, (or one of the best, and the other a terrible spy, really) they have awful luck. This time, what’s tripped them up, of all things, was Solo’s heartfelt love for expensive grooming supplies- a rough Greek smuggler was deemed unlikely to wear Pino Silvestre, and the result was where they have found themselves; in the dank basement of an abandoned sardine factory, waiting for someone to decide what to do with them. The wait has been especially rough on Solo, since their captors realized early on that Illya was not going to crack from pain, and was far too dangerous for even five of them to control. Solo is a lover, not a fighter, so they’ve beaten the hell out of him at regular intervals, tossing him back into the improvised cell for Illya to clean up, which he has with trembling hands and barely contained fury.

“They’ll find us. They always do. Gaby’s not going to just leave her favorite _fiancé_ moldering in a grimy former fish plant.” Solo sounds as smoothly confident as ever, in spite of the impressive black eye and assorted contusions.

Illya “tsks” under his breath as his hands competently mop up Solo’s latest wounds. How he remains so pretty when bad guys persist in using him as a punching bag, Illya will never understand. His chiselled chin must be made out of granite.

“They aren’t asking me any questions, Peril. Just….shouting.”

“I think it is me they want. You are just way to get to me.” Illya’s voice is grim, his jaw hard-set. “Maybe they are Mafiya, and they have marked me as KGB.” Solo winces as Illya uses his nails to flake dried blood out of his hair to examine the gash in his scalp. “You have hard head. Will do.”

Solo turns his face briefly into Illya’s palm, and just as swiftly, Illya flattens his hand against Solo’s cheek. It’s a fleeting gesture of affection, invisible if they are being watched, but it seems to put heart into the American.

“So,” he asks, “what’s for dinner? Disgusting gruel, or moldy bread?”

This time when they come, they take Illya, subduing him by holding guns to Solo’s head. It seems forever before the Russian is returned, the guards looking far worse for wear than the combative Kuryakin.

Solo has never feared Illya before, even at those times he probably should have had the sense to, but right now, all he can do is back into the corner of the room and watch Illya rage. There is no furniture in the room for him to break, and he’s already ripped the two shabby blankets to shreds and pulverized the tin bowl the poor food has come in. Feces and piss drip down the wall from where he’s smashed the bucket. The only thing left unbroken in the room is Solo, and he’s not entirely sure he isn’t next. Illya is demented, pounding against the walls, snarling like a feral wolf. His eyes are blank with fury, and his grunts are in no language that Solo can recognize. Illya has always been crazy, but now he is insane.

He’s not sure how long it goes on, but eventually Illya wears down, coming to a halt on his knees on the other side of the room. Looking around, Solo realizes that during the whole murderous rampage, Illya has never come close to him, including the noisome mess from the bucket. He’s untouched, unharmed. He can’t say the same for the Russian. Illya has done himself quite a bit of damage; sweater shredded from contact with the cinderblock walls, as is the skin underneath, nasty scrapes on both cheekbones and forehead from pounding his face into the unyielding door. Both hands are bleeding freely, knuckles and palms, and his lower lip is red. He’s bitten through it trying to contain himself.

When Illya speaks, Solo can barely hear him. “What’s that, Peril?”

Illya raises his battered face from contemplation of his knees. His voice is rusty, torn out of him. “They know they cannot break me, so they will break me by breaking you.”

Solo kneels next to him. “I can hold out. They’ll find us.”

“No.” Illya closes his eyes, ridiculous lashes a sweep on his cheeks. “Nothing left to find.”

“It’s going to be…”

“Is not going to be okay!” Illya flinches backwards so hard his head hits the wall and Solo reaches reflexively to catch him. His eyes are tortured and he’s biting off each word with miserable precision. “They give me one hour to…decide. Then they...break you.”

“Decide what? What do they want?” Solo still has Illya’s shoulders in his hands, and he rubs gently with his thumbs in hope of calming him. He might as well be trying to calm an avalanche. He's wild-eyed and staring, the same awful look he had worn in the hotel room in Rome when ordered to kill Solo.

“They want me. Want me to give up U.N.C.L.E. Give up Gaby, give up you.” Illya’s English has gone to hell, and Solo takes a minute to parse his meaning in the mix of English and Russian.

“They want you to work for them? Mafiya?”

“No. They want me to give up all. Destroy all. No more U.N.C.L.E. Cold War back on, not so cold.”

“Can’t you just pretend to give them what they want and buy us some time?” Solo asks reasonably.

Illya’s whole body shudders. “No time to buy. You are dead either way, but…bad death.” He stares at Solo, anguish in every line of his body. “You are partner.”

“Peril, how bad can it be? Dead is dead.”

The Russian’s jaw clenches. Solo can actually hear his teeth grinding. “They say you pretend to be Greek. You die as…Greek.”

“I never thought I’d say this to you, but you’re actually right. Bad way to die.” Solo’s fairly philosophical about death; he’s seen a lot of it, taken a lot of lives. That’s not the way he ever thought he’d go out, and not something he wants Illya to have to watch.

Illya barks out an unamused laugh. “Of course I am right.”

“You could kill me. Take the bargaining chip off the table. I know you could do it painlessly. Or mostly painlessly.” There is no doubt in his mind that his partner could pop his head off like a champagne cork.

“You want me to kill you?” Illya demands.

“Not particularly, but it might get you out of this at least and I’d have a little dignity. The other option leaves a lot to be desired.” If his cuffs were intact, Solo would shoot them to prove his insouciance. Instead he settles for flipping a lock of dishevelled hair off his forehead. It’s the best he can do.

Illya’s eyes flash to his, icy topaz meeting sapphire. Something indefinable crosses his face, gone so quickly Solo has no time to understand it. One of his enormous hands comes up and cradles Solo’s jaw, and the other runs down his arm and takes his hand, lacing his swollen fingers through the American’s well-groomed ones. Solo quivers under his partner’s palm. Somehow Illya has made simple contact into something more, something…loving.

His eyes are troubled as he carefully rubs his calloused thumb across Solo’s marred cheekbone. “Still pretty, Cowboy. Always so pretty.”

Solo’s eyes snap open wide in startlement. Is Illya, the ice mountain, the perenially disapproving Red Peril, complimenting him? And romantically? Maybe he’s the one who has gone insane. Illya is tracing Solo’s face, stroking with the gentleness of a blind man, as if he’s learning the contours of his partner’s bones in his fingertips.

“Peril, what…?”

“Shh, Cowboy,” Illya’s finger crosses his lips fleetingly. “Maybe I wait too long to say things.”

He’s completely flabbergasted. In the middle of nowhere, heading for a certain and horrible death for one, if not both of them, Peril suddenly discovers feelings? And wants to discuss them? If Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson came crashing in through a secret tunnel in the wall, Solo couldn’t be a bit more surprised than he is at this moment. Illya is still talking, and Solo tunes back in.

“You are…friend. Good friend. Best friend, maybe. Stubborn, vain, foolish, and careless, but friend. Maybe more than friend.”

One elegant eyebrow wings for his hairline. More than friend? Did their captors slip Peril some kind of serum? Did he hit his head too hard? Was he replaced by a body double or a decoy? Is he…actually serious? Is Illya in love with him?

When Illya’s mouth lands on his, as delicately as the brush of one of Gaby’s false eyelashes, Solo mentally throws up his hands. Nothing in this whole botched mess has made any more sense than this, and he trusts Illya more than anyone else in the world. Maybe even loves him a little, although even in extremis he’d never admit it.

Illya tastes sweet and salt at the same time; his dental hygiene has always been superb, even stuck in a cell and spitting out blood. Solo wraps his arms around the Russian’s slim waist and snuggles close, giving it his all as Illya’s tongue wanders across the seam of his parted lips. Who knew the giant idiot was an amazing kisser? Illya’s hands are in his hair, and his tongue in his mouth, and Solo’s starting to get lost in the moment.

He pulls back, and Illya moves forward, capturing his lips again, moving down to the side of his neck and biting, then tracing back up. He looks into Solo’s eyes for a moment, and slips one finger into Solo’s mouth. Long lashes veil his wolf’s eyes for a moment, and then he leans forward. “Good luck, Cowboy,” he breathes against his skin.

A small cracking noise is the only warning Solo has before Illya bites down on his torn lip, hard, and Illya’s tongue tastes bitter and cold. He yelps and swats at him, but the bigger man’s hands hold him as firmly as do his lips. He wraps his arms around Illya’s neck as the kiss deepens. He’s never kissed a man like this, but other than the stubble, it’s as lovely as kissing a woman. If they weren’t going to die, this would change everything between them. As it stands, if this is what Illya needs, Solo’s completely on board. It’s not like they have anywhere to go. He hopes the guards are watching. If it’s Greek they want, it’s Greek they’ll get.

He wonders if he should be touching Illya anywhere else, and decides in for a penny, in for a pound. He runs his hands across the lean ribs and wide shoulders hungrily, down over Illya’s narrow hips and squeaks in surprise as Illya’s weight lands on top of him, moving rhythmically to match the strokes of his tongue. His own tongue is feeling a bit strange, thick and sluggish, and his fingertips are going cold. Illya’s mouth falls away from his, and suddenly he can’t breathe under the muscle of the Russian’s shoulder. There is a sharp slam, and shouting and he’s numb and still and blank and gone.

The guards stand furiously over the two limp bodies. One kicks the Russian in the ribs with a wet snapping sound, but he doesn’t stir. Another bends back one of the American’s fingers until it breaks. The third stands up, disgusted. “Suicide pact, looks like. KGB had poison tooth. Killed both of them.”

“Dump the bodies on the beach. Let the gulls take care of them. Uranian pieces of shit.”

 

“Welcome back, Mr. Solo. You and Kuryakin had us a bit concerned. A few bad moments there.” Waverly’s voice is dry, but there is an undercurrent of relief. “Miss Teller has been quite inconsolable.”

He can’t make his vocal cords work, but his hands do, and he flails helplessly for a moment, as the British agent presses his shoulders back into the bed. “Mr. Kuryakin is just fine. Miss Teller is watching him, rather anxiously. He can speak, but he can’t yet move. Quite clever, really, using the cyanide tooth the KGB gave him to rescue you both.”

Solo glares furiously. “Now, now. Calm yourself, Mr. Solo. I expect no one mentioned to him that the cyanide had been swapped for tetrodoxin during his last dental appointment. And I am equally certain that he didn’t know at all about the tooth cap containing a locator. Luckily we found you both in the nick of time. And in quite compromising circumstances, too. Naked in a garbage heap. Pity no one brought along a camera.”

Waverly leans over him and clasps his shoulder firmly. “You chaps gave us a turn. I expect you’ll have a few things to say to each other during the mission debrief.”

**Author's Note:**

> My prompts were;  
> Test of loyalty  
> Napoleon - the incarnation of "Western decadence”  
> Rough/Gentle
> 
> I think I got them all, as well as the additional ones. Merry Christmas, merle_p!
> 
> And I swiped a line from this wonderful piece from The Editing Room, because it's funny as all get out, and I suggest reading this if you haven't. It's a hoot. http://www.the-editing-room.com/the-man-from-u-n-c-l-e.html
> 
> And I used this amazing fanart by ironfries heavily as an inspiration. This is the original link; http://ironfries.tumblr.com/post/127290622601/brodinsons-answered-napoleon-and-illya-having  
> 


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